Workshops & teachers
1. Street Photography: THE STREET LIFE
Lecturer: Stefan Rohner (Ibiza, Spain)
Humans, moments, stories, emotions - the subject of street photography brings us a lot of different aspects. The focus of the workshop is catching the street life in Ludza´s stations, streets, market - places wherever people gather. Stefan Rohner will guide the workshop participants into this street thematic. Under his instruction, the participants will explore the streets looking for emotions written on human faces, expressed by gestures and poses in combination with graphical elements and interaction between people, trying to catch the decisive moment. Moving through villages around Ludza using public transportation or by foot allows for other moments of street photography opportunities. Please note that the programme may vary, depending on weather conditions and special events happening in town during the week.
Requirements/technique: Digital or analogue, black and white or color is unimportant. The students must have their own cameras and know how to use them; laptops are welcome, but not obligatory. Most of all, they must be interested to photograph in the streets.
Stefan Rohner was born in 1962 in Germany, traveled around the world, now living in Ibiza, Spain. He is a photographer specialized in street and portrait photography. He has taught numerous workshops – in Ibiza, at Tuscany Photographic Workshop (http://www.tpw.it), in St. Petersburg (http://fotomasterskie.ru) He is a member of Anarchy Images (http://www.anarchyimages.com), and a selected photographer for The Family of Men (http://stmaarten.globat.com/%7eafirkin.com/FinalGallery/index.htm). He has had numerous exhibitions in Portugal, Spain and Germany, where he is represented by Galerie Lichtpunkt (http://www.lpgalerie.de).
www.stefan-rohner.net/index2.html
2. CREATIVE SHIFTS IN DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY
Lecturer: Andrejs Grants (Latvia)
Our joint task will be experimenting with means of expression of documentary image, from content and technical side – manipulating the message of the image to create additional visual and content intrigue. A photograph is capable of communicating not just with the factual object it reflects, but also with its hidden meanings or interpretations. These meanings can be purposefully provoked or created using an array of different techniques.
Even a small shift from traditional point of view at the object and/or technical realization of the image is capable of creating a different connotation, offering another kind of message, thus changing the meaning of the photograph.
Requirements/technique: It is possible to work in analogue (color or ‘classical’ b/w) or in digital techniques.
Andrejs Grants was born in 1955 in Riga, Latvia. From 1979 he is a teacher at a youth photography club at ‘House of Technical Innovation’ in Riga, which has since become a base ground for many acknowledged contemporary Latvian photographers (Arnis Balčus, Ivars Grāvlejs, Gatis Rozenfelds) and artists of related genres, and is now rather called “Grants’ School”. Grants is working in the genre of subjective documentary, with its characteristic refined black-and-white style, an integral part of greatest achievements of Latvian photography. In 2000, he received the Best Foreign Photographer Award at 17th Higashikawa Photo-Festival in Japan; in 2007 - highest award of 2007 Latvia Photography of the Year competition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrejs_Grants
3. STRANGER IN THE LANDSCAPE
Lecturer: Arion Kudasz (Hungary)
There is a reason for a figure to appear on an image. Most of the time the viewer has no hint who the person is or what the artist’s goal was by placing a figure in a certain position instead of using someone else doing something else. The reading of the situation is based on our prefiguration. In the project, ‘the stranger’ refers to many possible ways of placing a figure into a visual environment. Is the figure a stranger in relation to the landsape? or in relation with the photographer as an outsider while taking the picture? or was the photo staged using models?… The awareness of the net of connections between the participants (the ‘central’ figure, other figures, the creator, and the viewer) is vital for an artist.
This workshop will not be about traditional portrait, but more about the relations among depicted subjects. The students will go out and shoot each day. At all times we will discuss, select and edit work together. There will be discussions on portraiture photography as well, in theoretical and historical perspectives. I ask students to think in advance about their theme, then recall, plan, take and select images in their own style using methods of documentary and staged photography.
Requirements/technique This workshop is open to students working in any style or format – you may use the technique most fitting to your photographic idea: video stills, digital, large format, etc.
Arion Kudasz was born in 1978 in Budapest, where he lives and works to this day. After finishing his studies at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, he stayed at the university as an art teacher, leading a range of courses from digital techniques to portrait photography. He was also involved in advertising photography and post production for some years, before his teaching activity and art projects demanded most of his time. In 2007 he began his doctoral studies, concentrating on the connection between documentary and staged photography. His recent personal works deal with existence in the urban environment, decay of man-made constructions and change of values. These projects won several prizes at hungarian and international competitions.
4. FREE TOPIC: TOWARDS AN EXHIBITION
Lecturer: Tomáš Agat Błoński (Slovakia)
Today is the age of disappearing borders. Not just among states, but also among people and artistic fields. Photography as well can be an open direction with fluent transition to another artistic fields like painting, animation, interactive computer graphics, music or poetry.
The participants are expected to bring their portfolios not limited to photographic works. Bring anything what is close to your soul. We will be discussing and working almost without borders. Each student will participate in the development of his/her own ISSP project.
Requirements/technique: There are no technical or other limitations for the participants who are free to use any analogical or digital medium.
Tomáš Agat Błoński Born in 1975 in Košice, Slovakia. Project “Crossroads for ideas”, Edinburgh - Scotland (GB, 2004). Since 2002 he has been teaching multimedia and photography at the Fine Arts Faculty of the Technical University in Košice, SK. He is also a curator of exhibitions, and a lecturer on photography and digital art at different art workshops. He has participated in 58 group and 19 individual exhibitions in Slovakia and abroad (Czeck Rebublic, Poland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Finland, Brazil and USA).
5. GLOBAL STILL LIFE
Lecturer: Christopher Muller (Düsseldorf, Germany)
Useful objects can be very helpful as we go about our everyday – and there are an ever-increasing number of them about. But once our admiration for their usefulness wears off we tend to overlook them, and allow them to determine many daily routines and social interactions more or less unconsciously. Occasionally they slip out of their conventional roles and we might catch a glimpse of them in an unusual context or become aware of an unfamiliar aspect to them, which momentarily revitalises our jaded view of them. But normally we don’t pay them much attention, other than as consumers. In a rural setting at the easternmost edge of the European Union we will find an interesting mix of traditional objects embodying local culture and some globally mass produced items, which could, at least in theory, be from anywhere in the world. How do such heterogeneous objects interact with one another? What do the daily confrontations between specifically regional items and impersonal, mass produced objects tell us about the world and ourselves?
Together we will use photography to explore diverse objects - as we find them in familiar settings or else arrange them into compositions isolated from their normal surroundings or else in new unusual, outdoor or indoor, settings.
Requirements/Technique: We will be working in colour. Please bring your own cameras, digital or analogue, small or large format, which you should already be familiar with. If possible also bring a light, easily portable, tripod and a cable release to allow for longer exposures.
Christopher Muller was born in 1966 in West Germany, but grew up in London, England, where he studied art (at the Slade School of Fine Art) before concluding his studies back in Germany, at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. At the beginning of his studies he concentrated on painting, but by the end he had arrived at photography, via film and installation art. The genre of still life has provided the backbone of his artistic research, but he has also worked on collages, peopled interiors and landscape. His large format colour photographs have been exhibited widely in Germany and abroad in galleries and museums and reproduced in numerous exhibition catalogues. In 2004 he was awarded the prize for Contemporary Germany Photography from the Alfred Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung. Since September 2006 he has been professor of artistic photography at the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig.